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Excessive speed, recklessness, disregard for road rules claim 60 lives this month
View(s):At least 60 persons have died and some 100 others have been injured, several critically, in motor accidents islandwide, from the start of this month, a senior police official said yesterday. Of them, at least a dozen were killed and some 50 or more injured this week alone, Senior Police Superintendent (SSP) Priysantha Jayakody told the Sunday Times.
The scene of the accident in Atchuveli-Avarangal in Jaffna
In the bloodiest road fatality, reported on Thursday (10), five people attached to the President’s Security Division were killed and four others seriously injured in Minuwangoda when their Defender Jeep travelling at excessive speed rammed head on an oncoming private passenger bus while overtaking another passenger bus.
The group was returning from a funeral and was Colombo-bound when the incident took place at a bend in the road, he said.
At least two people were killed and 33 injured including four children, in separate accidents in Buttala and Atchuveli-Avarangal in Jaffna during the past 48 hours.
In Buttala, two youths aged 19 and 22 were killed instantly and a third critically injured when their motorcycle ridden at excessive speed, rammed into a parked truck at a location in Puhulhotuwa on the Buttala-Wellawaya Road, shortly after dusk on Friday.
The victims were identified as R.D. Tharuka Isuru Thilaka and H.V. Sanjeewa Madusinghe-both residents of Buttala.
Another 32 people including four children were injured when the bus they were traveling in crashed on to a lorry coming in the opposite direction on the Atchuveli-Avarangal Road in Jaffna early yesterday morning.
Minuwangoda: One of the bloodiest road accidents in the recent past
Most of the injured suffered fractures and bruises which were not life-threatening, according to Dr N. Nandakumar who attended on the victims at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. In other accidents that occurred during the previous week, another 25-plus persons were injured and four others killed in Dodanduwa-Hikkaduwa, Wattegama in Kandy and Kanagarayakulam in Jaffna.
In the most serious incident, a mother and her child were killed instantly and three others including two female relatives sustained serious injuries when their three-wheeler was hit by a speeding van on Galle Road between Dodanduwa and Hikkaduwa.
A search was immediately launched for the van driver who failed to stop after the incident. Another 21 passengers were also injured after a Badulla-to-Ampara truck slammed into a private passenger bus traveling in the opposite direction, at Dombagahawela, Siyambalanduwa, during this same period.
Police blamed the bulk of the accidents on excessive speed and the lack of respect for road rules and regulations.
“Most of the accidents are caused by reckless riding and driving, a don’t-care attitude for road rules and regulations, and, in some instances, sheer ignorance of the traffic laws,” SSP Jayakody said.
“Motorists, irrespective of the vehicle they are handling, should respect other road users and stay within the limits of the law, so that, accidents can be reduced or avoided altogether,” he added. (LB)